WHY IT RATES: The latest round of stellar hires adds to the brand's commitment to the travel advisor community.—Patrick Clarke, TravelPulse Senior Editor
Scenic Group, parent company of Emerald Cruises and Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours, continues to enhance support for its travel advisor partners with the hiring of four very experienced trade experts.
Twenty-five-year industry veteran Manny Celdran has joined Scenic Group as the Senior Director of Field Sales and will oversee the company’s Regional Sales Directors; Denise Reichwein Lees brings more than 36 years of experience to her new position as Regional Sales Director Northeast; Garette Ziem brings a diverse career of 25 years in the hospitality industry to his new position as Regional Sales Director Midwest; and Georgia Ridenhour, with 15 years in luxury travel industry sales and marketing, will be the new Regional Sales Director Southwest.
“We are thrilled and very fortunate to have so much talent joining our growing team,” explains Elizabeth Fettes, Vice President of Sales, Scenic Group USA. “We look forward to their collective expertise and industry knowledge expanding our ability to support our great trade partners in a year of bringing on new capacity for both our Scenic and Emerald Cruises brands and significant opportunity to grow our business with the trade, our most important growth channel, for years to come.”
Manny Celdran, spent most of his career with Celebrity Cruises, climbing the ranks from Sales Associate to Senior Manager positions in Sales. His consistent outstanding results has earned him a strong reputation for building meaningful industry relationships while managing large sales teams and driving results.
While developing lasting relationships through partnerships and collaborations with travel partners and driving revenue and brand awareness has certainly been a highlight of Manny’s career, he takes considerable pride in his people first work view and his efforts with young up-and-coming performers, helping to develop the next generation of leaders. Manny's deep understanding of the hospitality industry and his proven track record in delivering exceptional guest experiences will undoubtedly contribute to his success in this venture.
He is excited to leverage his expertise in account development, brand loyalty, and professional development to shape the future of this specialized niche and apply his extensive experience to this dynamic and rapidly growing segment of the industry. Manny will be overseeing Scenic Groups USA’s talented team of Regional Sales Directors and reporting directly to Elizabeth Fettes. He can be reached at Manny.Celdran@scenicusa.com.
Denise Reichwein Lees previously worked for MSC Cruises as a Director of Sales for the US market and Royal Caribbean International as a Business Development Manager in Eastern Pennsylvania. Her strong performance resulted in consistent triple-digit increases in revenue and passenger count throughout her tenure.
Denise’s hands-on approach to supporting travel partners grew agency penetration by nearly 250 percent while also educating thousands of agents on the brand and its fleet. Combined with more than 20-plus years of working on the travel agency side of the desk makes her the ideal choice to support and grow the Northeast region (CT, DC, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT). Denise will be reporting to Manny Celdran and can be reached at Denise.ReichweinLees@scenicusa.com.
Garrete Ziem began his 25-year career in travel with GOGO Vacations, rising quickly to become Business Development Manager. Continuing his successful management career, he held several sales and marketing management positions in several hotel companies before most recently serving as Director of Sales and Marketing with Tru by Hilton Indianapolis, where he drove revenue and brand awareness to new heights.
As an accomplished professional, Garette has always sought out strong performing travel advisors, supporting their sales efforts and developing long-term relationships. Quick to offer his assistance, Garette’s spread of experience – from new business development to social media planning to key account management – brings valuable expertise and exceptional leadership skills in the Midwest region (IA, IL, IN, KS, MD, MI, MN, NE, OH, WI) and makes him an ideal resource for travel partners. Garette will be reporting to Manny Celdran and can be reached at Garette.Ziem@scenicusa.com.
Georgia Ridenhour previously headed the partnership sales, marketing and publishing division as Vice President with Andrew Harper Travel, and together with her team, served more than 700 global partnerships annually, including several ocean, river and expedition cruise and yachting partners.
Prior to joining Scenic Group, Georgia further honed her experience within the yachting industry by serving as the global travel trade business and partnership development director for a worldwide yacht charter company. Her keen understanding of and passion for serving travel suppliers, travel agencies and consortiums and their travel clients will drive her sales efforts in the Southwest region (TX, OK, AR, LA and NM). Georgia will report to Manny Celdran and can be reached at Georgia.Ridenhour@scenicusa.com.
Scenic Group, which includes Emerald Cruises, Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours, Mayflower Cruises & Tours and Evergreen Tours, has grown over its 37-year history to include award-winning, river and ocean cruises and handcrafted land journeys that take guests to many of the world’s most fascinating destinations covering all seven continents. Since 2008, Scenic has set the benchmark for truly all-inclusive, five-star river cruises in Europe and Southeast Asia as well as luxury cruises on Egypt’s Nile.
In 2019, Scenic introduced Scenic Eclipse, The World’s First Discovery Yacht, a 228-guest ultra-luxury ship, and in 2023, unveiled its sister, Scenic Eclipse II, continuing Scenic’s commitment to raising the cruise industry standards to new heights. Emerald Cruises has nine branded Star-Ships offering river sailings in Europe and on the Mekong. In 2022, Emerald Azzurra was the first yacht to launch under the Emerald Cruises brand - a 100-guest superyacht that will sail the warm waters of the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Caribbean and Central America, followed in August 2023 by its sister, Emerald Sakara.
SOURCE: Scenic Group press release.
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